Teamsters Press for Expansion of Restroom Breaks

Teamsters officials Thursday called for the expansion of restroom privileges for female employees at a Nabisco Foods plant in Oxnard, following allegations that the company’s policy is so restrictive that some workers have resorted to wearing diapers on the job.

Union representatives pressed their demands Thursday in a meeting with company officials that went late into the night.

“At this point we are in negotiations, and we will not be making any comments at this time,” said Scott Dennison, secretary-treasurer of the union, which represents more than 500 workers at the 3rd Street factory.

Dennison would not discuss the nature of the negotiations.

But in a press release issued Thursday morning, union officials said they would demand that the company provide more restrooms, employ more relief workers to substitute for those who need to go to the restroom and extend break periods to ensure that employees have adequate time to use it.

“All of those issues are being addressed,” Dennison confirmed Thursday while breaking from negotiations at the Nabisco plant.

The union’s action comes after nearly 30 current and former Nabisco employees agreed to join a class-action lawsuit being prepared against the company. Union officials have acknowledged that previous administrations failed to act on the women’s complaints.

The women turned to federal officials, who last month launched an investigation into sex-discrimination charges lodged against the Oxnard plant. The plant makes steak sauce, chili pepper products and the world’s supply of Grey Poupon mustard.

In complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, women employees accuse Nabisco of discriminating against them by restricting their restroom visits while allowing men to go whenever they want.

Some of the assembly line workers say they have suffered bladder infections because they have been forbidden from going to the bathroom when they need to, according to the federal complaints.

Many of the women say they have resorted to wearing diapers, sanitary napkins and other forms of protection in case they failed to make it to the bathroom.

Nabisco officials have denied the allegations.

Many of the employees who have filed federal complaints against Nabisco are seasonal workers who have been with the company for more than 20 years.

And many said they even took their complaints to the local Teamsters Union, but were told nothing could be done because bathroom regulations are a matter of company policy.

In an interview last month, Dennison admitted that in the past the union failed to act on the issue. But he pledged to support the women’s fight against the company.

“What you’re really dealing with is how an employer treats its people,” Dennison said in that interview. “This is crazy. We’ll go as far as striking them if we have to.”

Lawyers in Oxnard and Chicago who are preparing the class-action suit against the company say they welcome the Teamsters’ involvement. But they note that the union is a potential defendant in the lawsuit.

“We are very pleased that the union is now taking an aggressive position with respect to this long-standing problem,” said Paul Strauss, who is with a Chicago law firm helping put together the suit. “We just wish the union had done this under its prior administrations. We regret it has taken so long for this to happen.”